Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Frosty840 says:

Ooooh, atmospheric. And aquatic.

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Smee says:

I always thought it was odd that Bioshock, a game set almost entirely underwater, doesn’t have any swimming sequences. Pre-release, I assumed the environment would be one of the biggest hazards. A constant threat from depressurisation and drowning, or at least one sequence where you use a diving suit on the sea bed – but nope. The intro doesn’t count, since that was scripted. That footage makes me think the same thing, since Big Daddies are too heavy to float.

That’s not really a complaint, since swimming sections in FPSs are always awful and awkward, but still. Water never being a threat seemed like an odd choice, considering the status of Rapture.

Anyway. I wonder why this Big Daddy has increased intelligence and takes orders from someone who isn’t a Little Sister. Also: will you still fight other Big Daddies?
I think the thing I’m most looking forward to here is finding out how they’re going to explain everything.

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Hidden_7 says:

Yeah, this is really not doing anything to dissuade me from the belief that Bioshock 2 is a Bad Idea. If anything it looks like a chance to Miss the Opportunities presented in the first game even Harder.

Oh well. I certainly don’t wish them failure. Hopefully it will turn out good (nay great!), but it is quite a challenge to follow Bioshock up well and none of the information presented so far suggests that the team has risen to that challenge yet. I reserve judgement, however.

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Clockwork Harlequin says:

Aah. . . wow. I think it looks amazing. The environments were always the best part of the game for me, and no. 2 looks just as eye-candyish.

–Smiles vacantly–

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catmorbid says:

*yawn* It’s so apparent that the player is some sort next-generation super big daddy, i.e. faster but still strong with other bonuses etc. This game just looks boring. The first one was very interesting in theory, but in the end it was just another pipe-run with nice story. If BS2 would supercede it’s predecessor, I will eat my pants.

I Miss System Shock 2 :/

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Xercies says:

Hmm still not sure whether this is a good idea or not, playing as a Big Daddy is interesting but I still get the feeling its kind of stupid…

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marilena says:

That bit where water breaks in and swallows him is better than anything I can remember from Bioshock. And, although I may be just dreaming, it feels from the combat bit that the enemies no longer take absurd amounts of hits to go down.

I guess the project lead’s obvious flair for set pieces may actually make this more interesting that the original for me.

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Yiorgos says:

I agree with Barts, they need to open up level design and gameplay. A bit like the levels from the Thief games. The story can still be linear. I expected a degree of open-endedness in the first (with all the claims of it being the ‘spiritual successor to SS2) but was very dissappointed…

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PJ says:

I liked the original Bioshock, but I was always disappointed that it never really lived up to the promise of those few minutes of promo FMV through the eyes of a splicer dragging a little sister out of a pipe and getting thrown around the room and impaled by a big daddy. There was a wonderful sense of physicality in that video which unfortunately disappeared when you started playing the actual game and it turned out to be another (though excellent) floating-camera-with-hands-stuck-on FPS.

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toni says:

more of the same….until they don’t tell me that they revamped the whole plasmid/tonic system I’m not getting excited on this one. more limiting plasmid system so it has an impact on gameplay, more ways to tackle a situation than shoot crazy splicers in the face and choice in storyline that actually has an impact on the story and they have me on board. I could live with the linearity if the levels would open up and you could circumvent certain fights. but if it seems to play in rapture (or some other city underwater) I don’t think they have the possibilities to open up the levels, more like bubble-hallway-bubble-hallway with an occasional first/2nd floor thrown in. right now it looks like more of the same, should have been an add-on….
since I got burned by Bioshock once, this aint no first-day buy or preorder, not in the slightest. we’ll see if the reviewers can hold back the fanboyish hyperbole this time (also on RPS)

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DK says:

Utterly horrible. They’re simply destroying the potential Bioshock 1 had (but didn’t realize but to a tiny amount) and replacing it with utterly boring, generic bigbudget drivel.

Party on, Bioshock 2.

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Funky Badger says:

dishwasherlove: you’re completely right.Structure’s in no way a bad thing (SS2 got the point of letting you choose which of three items to find first) – the most “open” game I’ve played is Europa Universalis: Rome – and it’s extremely hard to get into…

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Yes/No says:

OMG Y R U PLAYIN AS BIG DADDY?!1!!
I WUNT TO PLAI AS SHODAN >=(

Well, I’m looking forward to it at least.

The guy Jordan Thomas seems more interested in actually making a game than some half-baked commentary on video games in general.

Not that the half-baked commentary was bad.

It just got in the way at the end.

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Yiorgos says:

piphil, I’m not sure why Bioshock makes me wish it was more like Deus Ex…You’re right, I didn’t think that about HL2. And I did play Deus Ex many times through, even until recently.

(I tend to play linear games only once, if I try a second play-through it becomes a chore and I give up very soon)

Maybe its because of some similarities in gameplay mechanics…but after all one was a first-person RPG while the other is more action/adventure.

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Po0py says:

I was hoping they would make Rapture look a bit different this time round. Didn’t see much new gameplay except for what looks like an underwater level. But combat seems pretty much the same with a little Big Daddy Melee thrown in and maybe you are a little slower moving about. I’m still hoping for something that clearly sets the game apart from first game. Simply no point in doing the same game twice, y’know.

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Po0py says:

@Little Green Man: actually, it uses Unreal 2.5 engine, which is the same as what you see in Unreal Tournament 2004 beleive it or not. They do use some parts of Unreal 3 engine to pretty it up a bit and they also hired a dude especially so he could work on making the water look beleivable. But at it’s core it’s Unreal 2.5.

I’d love to know if they started Bioshock 2 from scratch using Unreal 3. Anyone have any info’s?

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Nighthood says:

Wow, considering how powerful the drill is supposed to be, it’s really anticlimactic.

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Austin says:

The linearity of the original Bioshock was the point. I look at Bioshock as more of a commentary on FPS’s; without giving away too many spoilers, a major plot point is that you’re “on rails.” You could say that the plot is there just to justify the linearity, but I think if you read it deeply enough they’re really almost parodying it.

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PC Monster says:

Bugger it.

Well, Hype-Avoidance lasted about 4 hrs. I blame my subconscious: It’s stronger than I am.

My one wish for Bio2? Feature the Bioshock bug-man who obviously got ditched early on in development. Hes too pretty to leave to the dust of history.

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Calabi says:

@ Austin. That was the most annoying part of Bioshock to me. The way it played out, wasnt revelatory a parody or unexpected. To me it was just the perfect excuse to have it linear and pretend they are being clever when they are just being lazy.

The fact they dont present the player with any other choices, what are they saying?, they arent saying anything.

I dont mind playing on rails first person shooters, but the way it came across in Bioshock it felt like it was laughing at me, it made me wonder why I even bothered playing it.

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Dracko says:

Well, this already looks far more interesting than the utter turd the original one was. They actually understood tat you should be able to use Plasmids and weapons at the same time, thank fuck.

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Dracko says:

Austin: “The shitty portion of the game is the point! Who needs game design when we have a ever so important message to sell to idiots!”

This is the sort of attitude that would kill games. God forbid anyone bother to put effort in their construction any more. Not when we can just sell really poor pulp stories with really poor characterisations instead. Because that apparently, is what the people want.

Whatever happened to books or films?

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DK says:

“someone said they wanted something that really sets Bioshock 2 apart from Bioshock 1… how about the fact that you’re a Big Daddy?”
But you’re not. They diluted the whole concept of it (which they already did at the end of Bioshock 1) even further by just making you standard-fps-protagonist-with-drill-melee. You’re a Big Daddy in nothing but name.
It really seems like 2K is afraid of actually having their players think about what they’re doing. There’s no consequences to anything you do in the first one – ridiculous “save or harvest little sisters” included. The good variant gave you MORE of a reward than the bad one – where’s the dilemma in that?

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JonFitt says:

I liked the original at the time, but I think things might have changed a bit since then. I feel like Fallout3 and FarCry2 have dimmed my excitement for linear corridor shooters.

Certainly the “Ooh I can set fire to things” aspect loses its punch when you’ve set brush fires in the mean time. Also FarCry2′s level of first person immersion with the healing, and general use of physical actions was far better than BS1.

Rapture was pretty, but little was made of it being an underwater city, except after the initial descent it did mean that you have very few vistas. I think Fallout3 created a far more fully realised environment.

BS1 had a stronger story aspect than the other games I mention, but that’s somewhat tempered by the over reliance on tapes for backstory.

All in all, I’m less excited for BS2 than I would have been a year ago.

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Kieron Gillen says:

I too think the dual-wield stuff is actually pretty meaningful in terms of interaction re: Combos and all that sort of stuff. Certainly a bigger change than – say – Thief 2 did over Thief 1.

KG

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SirKicksalot says:

Isn’t Undying the first shooter that had “dual-wielding” of magic powers and guns? That game was awesome. I was expecting BS to have dual-wielding as well, it was stupid to have the gun in your right hand and not use the left hand for plasmids.

The plasmids were better in Dark Messiah than in BS anyway.

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JonFitt says:

@diebroken Ah yes, I’d forgotten F.E.A.R let you melee. That’s one more.
The hand to hand was good (although it just broken MP IMHO) but it kind of counts as a ‘weapon’ since you basically have to switch to it.

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Cooper says:

Hmmm… Ok, so a nippier Big Daddo.

But, even so, are they maintaining those static arms in some kind of homage to retro shooters?

Even if the character is more agile, having a bit more animation (e.g: the screw arm swinging) would help.

It just felt like I was looking out of the eyes of a cardboard hoverbot, not a hefty killing machine…

Also, I agree with the sentiments that worry this game might miss all the promises of the original even more. As a ‘spiritual successor’ to SS2, I was horrendously disappointed at Bioshock. It was a good shooter, with some delusions of head thinky grandeur, nothing more…

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Jeremy says:

@DK
You still are a Big Daddy, albeit the “original” one which has a bit more scamp to his trot. In terms of story, it changes quite a bit. The lumbering Daddies were exciting in the original game because it was this sort of horror movie foreboding build up and the realization that… oh crap, at some point I will have to kill him, and I hope a stray bullet of mine doesn’t graze his massive frame. That doesn’t really work though in terms of “Now I’m the Big Daddy”, especially when there’s no protagonist running around waiting to kill me. Also, again, we have yet to see any cohesive gameplay, until that point, we have no idea what to truly expect. Not even my opinion of “this game is awesome” has any verifiable veracity to it. For all we know, I might hate this game and you might love it.

I would say that the harvesting really only affected the early stages, it was a question of (to put it in RPG terms), do I want to gain 5 levels right now, or wait and be slightly weaker and then gain 6 levels later. And feel warm and fuzzy. I’m unfortunately a ridiculously virtuous paladin type when I play any game, I would rather be a quarter as powerful as long as I make the “good” choice. I can’t live with myself.. killing those lil’ ones.

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Fumarole says:

Man, I had forgotten how divisive Bioshock was. Let’s just hope no one mentions the p-word.

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plant42 says:

Don’t get your hopes up – this is a sequel, and it’s NOT done by the company that made the original. Expect a similar, derivative game reusing all the same weapons, plasmids, level bits, effects and monsters…

Which is exactly what this video showed.

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dhex says:

i’m not a dopamine receptor junky like many enthusiasts so novelty is not my heroin of choice. neat is good enough for games work, ya know?

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Lewis says:

Jordan Thomas is the best man for the job, undoubtedly. I was extremely happy to hear he was at the helm.

It sounds luscious. My only reservation at this stage is how… well, the same it looks. I like my sequels to have a bit of change involved.

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diebroken says:

@Thirith : I wonder if Jordan Thomas ever played Condemned: Criminal Origins (the serial killer ‘Match Maker’ leaving victims with mannequins and masks in tableau vivant, for BioShock’s Fort Frolic inspiration), or watched 13 Ghosts (for The Cradle – the ‘Jackal’ ghost: http://www.burgessweb.com/shawn/horrorfind/Evil%20Scarecrow%20and%20Jackal.JPG – the one on the right, alternatively: http://images.epilogue.net/users/stevenadams/offspring_of_hammer_and_jackal.jpg)

;)

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Aubrey says:

“I was expecting BS to have dual-wielding as well, it was stupid to have the gun in your right hand and not use the left hand for plasmids.”

I believe that this wasn’t the original intent for simultaneous plasmids vs. weapons as the project started, but as development went on, the logical conclusion became obvious. Unfortunately, it was too much work to overhaul toward the end. Instead, as a compromise, there was very fast switching between plasmids and weapons (effectively the same as being able to see both), so you couldn’t *quite* fire things simultaneously, but you could atleast switch back and forth without too much of a headache.

Having both hands on display brings with it a much more pronounced affordance of combo-ing (as well as enabling true simultaneous firing). This may well encourage people to play with the weapon/plasmid combos a bit more, which is a good thing. If you weren’t using it inventively in Bioshock 1, you haven’t played Bioshock 1… not that you shouldn’t be allowed to play a game in a boring way, but hey… that’s the flipside of freedom: Freedom to be dull.

If Bioshock 2 continues to riff on the aspects of the original which worked, I’ll be really happy. There was definitely a good shooter going on in Bioshock which could be over the top excellent if polished up in the direction it’s naturally trying to take itself.

I hope that further finding its feet will means that it will be able to step out of the shadow of its antecedents as far as the angry internet men are concerned, but I doubt anything will change the rigid perspective that every FPS RPG ought to be a re-skinned Deus Ex or System Shock 2, warts and all.

I fucking hate Bioshock comment threads and I hate myself for posting in one.

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R. Jack says:

The previous version of this comment got eaten by the spam filter, which means I can edit for brevity! First, I’m glad to see that the “human” models in the sequel seem to be much improved over the original. Hopefully they’ve implemented a less capricious method of switching between plasmids/weapons – the PC version was pretty bad in that respect with the weapon-number key assignments changing almost randomly.
Also, I’ve convinced myself that Rapture’s advanced biotech is what caused the divergence in history that leads to the Fallout universe. At least it explains the similar soundtracks. :D

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Nick says:

Hmm, what a stupid idea.

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Muzman says:

You’d have to have really enjoyed the moment to moment play of the first one to really like much in that clip, I think. Since I didn’t …
The possibility of swimming in the underwater game is interesting I guess.
(Kieron’s incorrect to suggest that sequals tinkering with a formula respresents progress. Shooters run on that sort of gimmick. Thief wouldn’t have benefitted.)

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Jeremy says:

The most radical beliefs are often fueled by ignorance.

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DK says:

I recommend this interview with Ken Levine as a good read:
http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/556/556421p1.html
It just oozes broken promises and false statements.

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Muzman says:

Solario says:
Hmm… An Original (Big Daddy) running around fighting a superior New (Big Sister) while simultaneously taking out Lesser deviantions (of the Original Big Daddy.) It’s almost like they could be doing a whatcha-ma-call-it? Metacommentary on Sequels.

Now who’s jumping to conclusions. Everything that seems derivative is actually self aware postmodern genius, of course.

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DK says:

Is wanting a game that the developers themselves claimed to be the (spiritual) sequel to a previous game to atleast live up to the baseline features of said previous game snobbery?
They managed to fall short of a nine year old game. In computer gaming terms, that’s several lifetimes.

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Zyrusticae says:

I fail to understand all this hype around SS2.

Granted, I’ve only played the first few hours of it, but the gameplay is hardly more advanced than Bioshock’s. The only thing I think could be considered a “step down” is the number of abilities you could have active on your character at any one point in time, and depending on who you ask, that’s not much of a concern at all if the abilities you do get have just as much impact on the gameplay.

I also fail to see how System Shock 2′s story is in any way superior to that of Bioshock’s. If you’re going to call it trash that’s aspiring to be gold, I can say the exact same thing of SS2′s. Out-of-control sapient computer creates a race of aliens but makes a miscalculation and finds someone to fix the problem for her, but ends up miscalculating yet again and being destroyed by that someone.

Really, you can simplify any kind of plot to that level and make it seem less-than-impressive. I just can’t wrap my head around it all. What was done so poorly about Bioshock’s narrative that warrants such hate? I am utterly confused.

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Cedge says:

My jaw dropped at the water crashing through the glass. Stunning.

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Nighthood says:

Why is “DK” gradually trolling this thread? Yes, we know that it has broken some promises, but you don’t need to go on about it. So did Fable, are you going to complain about that?

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DK says:

“So did Fable, are you going to complain about that?”
Gods no, I haven’t played Fable, nor have I paid attention to it’s pre-release hype. Plus, does ANYONE actually believe a word that Molyneux says anymore?

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Radiant says:

Bioshock seems to be DK’s ex girlfriend.

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Solario says:

@DK, Well, I did mention that it was being headed by the guy who made the greatest level in the old game. Which I would argue was enough of an argument in and of itself. I do agree with the criticisms of the old game, but I guess I wasn’t too into the hype to begin with and I never played SS or SS2, so I had no investment in the game, when I first tried it. I found an excellent, if a little deriviative, FPS with a fantastic art design and just a fun game. And personally, I’ll always give a little leeway, if the art design is different and interesting. It’s probably why I dislike Crysis so much. Mediocre game with subpar art design.

The hype backlash is getting ridiculous. People are acting as if the first Bioshock was the Phantom Menace of videogames. It wasn’t that bad. At worst, it was a solid B-game.

I’m not jumping to conclusions, I’m speculating. I’m not judging the entirety of the game based on two minutes of in-game video and what little information we have at the moment. I’m saying: considering that the first game did a meta-commentary on the linearity of the FPS, I don’t think it’s a stretch that the second one could be riffing on the Anxiety of Influence/Sequel dread. Sure there’s always the danger of falling into the exact trappings, that you are commenting on (like in Bioshock One,) but that doesn’t mean you should exclude the possibility, that there might be some actual thinking behind the design. But I was talking about the story, not the actual game part.
But again, like everything in these commentaries: It’s all speculation. We haven’t got the game. We haven’t had reports from anyone who played the game aside from the developers, so all we can do now is speculate. And speculate poorly. Let’s not dress our speculations up in invisible clothing and judge the merits and demerits of the game.

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Swainy says:

Eh. I never really got hooked into Bioshock myself. I suppose i’ll pick it up when it hits the steam sales like with Bioshock (Which i got for £3.99! What a steal!)

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DK says:

@Solario, I actually think Bioshock was a Solid A-game (whereas something like HAWX would be an okay/good B-game)
I also understand your stance on giving leeway when the art style is good. It’s just that the incredible art style contrasts the horrible issues in atmosphere and gamedesign even more for me. Bright Light/Deep Shadow kind of thing. Especially with the pre-release promises. If it wasn’t for the developers (and the developers history) setting such a high standard, the issues when they fail to meet that standard probably wouldn’t be so glaring.

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Zyrusticae says:

How could you see SS2’s story wasn’t better when you have only played a tiny amount of it?

By distilling it into a short little summary created by those who have actually played through the entire game?

Frankly, I can’t stand people who hark on “story” in games as though it’s all-important. Diablo’s story is complete, utter tripe, but I don’t see anyone whining about that (rather, the whining tends to be more focused upon the repetitive gameplay). But, I suppose it is unfair of me to try to compare the two when I’ve only gone completely through one game and not the other.

Still, can someone actually explain to me what was so bad about Bioshock’s story, especially in comparison to SS2?

I don’t think having the choices of either A. Sneak around or B. Kill are granting the player that much freedom.

Urgh, not this again! I’ve already gone over this before, but your choices in Crysis are far more granular than that. As Crysis is an action game, your choices are focused on how you proceed to execute the enemy. Speed into the throng and knock them all down, strength mode to K.O. them with a single blow, toss a grenade into the back of the HV, etc., etc. Saying the game’s choice consisted entirely of “Sneak” or “kill” is completely unfair, especially considering it’s an action game where you’re pretty much expected to kill the enemy through any means necessary.

But enough about Crysis. It really has no place in a conversation about Bioshock and its particular shortcomings. (Speaking of which, I’m bowing out of this one. I like to try to retain at least some of my hopeless optimism…)

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Radiant says:

But Spartan is sort of my point.
I’d go so far as to say that the Spartan turned out to be as successful a video game character because he was faceless.
You could fill in the blank with whatever you liked; relatability turned up to 11.
Would Spartan have been so iconic if he was featured as a scarred faced generic angry man?
Hardly.
Not many if those featured on the side of a bus.
I’m not belittling the devs hard work, I really want bioshock 2 to be good.
I just don’t want to be a big lumbering oaf.
I want to be a human discovering horrific things like I did in the first game not some drill handed killing machine; that’s a different game.

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Caiman says:

Bioshock was a game that went on a little too long, the last couple of levels particularly were disappointing. So far this looks like more of the same game that had outlived its appeal. I hope the next video reveals a bit more depth.

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Mark Stevens says:

Wow. Some people are so quick to judge a 12 hour game based on a minute or two of footage.

The game’s called BioShock 2. Not Rupert Trumpington’s Fruit Basket Delivery Challenge. Some similarity with BioShock is to be expected. I trust Jordan Thomas’ team to deliver something that walks a confident line between the familiar and the unknown. If you want something radically different, then sit it out and wait for the next bus.

Naturally, those whining the loudest will also be first in line to pick up their Little Sister Collector’s Edition from Best Buy at the stroke of midnight.

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Psychopomp says:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

I was unimpressed with System Shock 2.
My prime complaints are
1)It was clunkly
2)It was absolutely broken against someone who tried to mostly go with non-combat skills
3)The weapon degradation was ridiculous
4)It was pubescent-penis-in-a-stripclub hard to find your way around(It’s the same guys who made the Thief games, how did they fuck that up?)

Now, before someone tries to say that Bioshock didn’t even give you the choice of non-combat skills, I’d rather be given no choice than spend hours playing a game only to realize I was fucked because *they didn’t figure out that some of us thought this would be useful.* (This is pretty much my same opinion on 3rd edition and 4th edition DnD)

Also, why the hell does *every* shooter have to be the next Deus Ex?
No one hates on Half-Life for not being a corridor shooter with superb story-telling, so what’s wrong with a corridor shooter with superb storytelling, plus light RPG and exploratory aspects?
Bioshock was an *amazing* game. In my honest-to-fucking-god opinion, it’s right up there with Valves work.

Well, 2/3rds of it, at least.

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Idle Threats & Bad Poetry says:

@Mark Stevens:

Any game called “Rupert Trumpington’s Fruit Basket Delivery Challenge” would be friggin’ awesome. I’m serious.

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ACS says:

re: narrative possibilities of playing a Big Brother

You’re one of the first of your kind: old, broken, and obsolete. You’re lost in a place that’s now entirely foreign to you, and you’re not fully who you used to be; you were a person (at one point) and you volunteered for this, but you can’t remember why or understand what’s happened since.

Worse, you’ve lost your purpose. You’re a guardian, and your charges have grown up, disappeared, or fallen under the sway of your new, sleek, and powerful replacements. So you’ve got a choice: reclaim your humanity, abandoning your place in the world you know and understand, or abandon your purpose, leaving innocent people to drown in your lost city. Which do you choose?

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diebroken says:

@Psychopomp:

I was unimpressed with System Shock 2
Does that mean you were unimpressed with SHODAN? :P

1)It was clunkly
Do you mean the Dark Engine, or the graphics/animations, or having to switch between GUIs, or…?

2)It was absolutely broken against someone who tried to mostly go with non-combat skills
You are a soldier, trying to survive – you should have at least one area of combat expertise. You can still sneak/lean around, listen carefully (Dark Engine – I still love thee).

3)The weapon degradation was ridiculous
I didn’t really mind this, you just have to learn to repair/maintain your weapons. It also provided for some tense moments.

4)It was pubescent-penis-in-a-stripclub hard to find your way around(It’s the same guys who made the Thief games, how did they fuck that up?)
As with most games/levels it just takes time to memorize. Some sections weren’t the prettiest, but it did feel like being on board a ship(s), in outer space, alone.

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MultiVaC says:

If you purposefully tried to avoid combat skills, you might be approaching it the wrong way. Aside from choosing my career, I’ve always picked which skills to use based on my current needs in the game. If I found I needed more combat skills, I’d pick some out. There are enough cyber modules and different skills that you can afford to make some mistakes on the easier difficulties. You might have to pay for some of them, but that’s necessary. It seems to me that when you “say yes to the player” (BioShock’s design mantra) too often you make it impossible to make any mistakes at all, and all the choices become meaningless. In BioShock I was able to use almost any plasmid I felt like, I could use every gun, and there was always enough EVE or ammo around. The only reason I didn’t hack everything in the entire game was because I was sick of playing the minigame. Not only did this kill the replay value of the game, it turned Rapture into an amusement park as opposed to the intense survival struggle on the Von Braun. You couldn’t even die. It didn’t even matter what you chose to do with the Little Sisters outside the ending FMV and a few lines of dialog from Tennenbaum. “We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us.” It’s a great quote from Andrew Ryan, but also a broken promise from BioShock.

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Psychopomp says:

@Broken

Of course SHODAN blew me away.

1)I meant the thing as a whole felt clunky, and it’s nothing against the Dark Engine. I *adore* the Thief games, and I felt they played just fine.

2) That’s not a good excuse, if your going to give someone non-combat options, and not guide them away from putting everything into, make them viable. Deus Ex, Fallout, and Planescape:Torment all did these swimmingly.
Also, sneaking was damn near impossible, what with how many enemies were thrown about. Penumbra, this is not.

3)It’s infuriating when I just fucking repaired that crap and it’s broken again

@Irish AI
Why does an FPS-RPG automatically need the grid? This wasn’t Invisible Wars hellish mess, this just meant that you couldn’t save up obscene amounts of chips and soda.

I hear people bitch about the use of mini-games all the time, yet I never hear *anyone* complain about the completely luck based hacking and repair in SS2.
I hear people complain about Bioshock’s linearity, but last I checked almost every shooter held up on a pedestal, bar Deus Ex, was just as bad.
I think you’re all just giving SS2 a free pass. I hate using this phrase, but it’s the rose tinted glasses talking. It hasn’t stood up well.

“Yeah, I wish BioShock was more like SS2 or Deus Ex. Nobody’s saying every shooter should the “next Deus Ex”. Just BioShock.”

And therein lies the problem. Judge something on it’s own merits.

Streamlined=/=Worse
Team Fucking Fortress 2.
End.
Of.
Point.

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Dave Gates says:

@vicx:
It didn’t really have anything to do with Bioshock or System Shock plot wise to be honest, it was more of a third person adventure rpg with combat. There were similarities in the fact it was quite an adult game in plot, you can probably get it off ebay and run it in DosBox, i’d recommend it, its very good and often forgotten.

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MultiVaC says:

Why would you restart the game? You weren’t gimped for the rest of the game, not at all. I’m just curious, because if you found the skills marginally useful, why did you keep putting so many points into them? There are lots and lots of cyber modules to get in the game, there were times where I had over 100 of them. You could have gotten some combat skills. And it’s not like you wasted the points on non-combat skills, because they become increasingly useful as the game progresses. Maybe the Repair skill is useless, but that’s about it. Hacking, Maintenance, and Research are all skills I invest heavily in every time, and it works out really well for me. It’s a hard game. SS2 was also much less linear, especially in Hydroponics, Ops, or Recreation. The only level in BioShock where I felt like I was really exploring was the Medical Pavilion, where I actually felt a good bit of System Shock influence when I played. Regarding the minigames, I do prefer the hacking in SS2. It may have been completely luck based, but I prefer that to BioShock’s pain in the ass Pipe Dream game that you’re forced to play ten million times.

“And therein lies the problem. Judge something on it’s own merits.”

I never said BioShock was a bad game, or empirically worse than SS2. But we were told “GUYS THIS IS THE SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR TO SYSTEM SHOCK”, and there was Ken Levine on TTLG personally saying that it was just as complex, and it was the deepest game he’s ever made, etc. And from that perspective BioShock is a failure.

“Bioshock was an *amazing* game. In my honest-to-fucking-god opinion, it’s right up there with Valves work”

It is, in my honest-to-fucking-god opinion as well. But it’s no successor to System Shock. And maybe that might not be so disappointing, if there was some other game to fill that role. But there are none. The closest we have is STALKER, but that game has it’s fair share of serious flaws, despite being one of the best games in recent memory. Maybe Fallout 3, as well.

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Psychopomp says:

“Maybe Fallout 3, as well.”

At the risk of sounding like I belong in NMA, it was more like Oblivion 2:Hooray for Headshots.

BUT THAT’S FOR ANOTHER COMMENTS THREAD!

“Weapon degradation is a lot worse in FC2 than SS2…”
I didn’t even know weapons degraded in FC2.

“You weren’t gimped for the rest of the game, not at all. I’m just curious, because if you found the skills marginally useful, why did you keep putting so many points into them”

I was under the impression that they were only marginally useful, because I hadn’t leveled them enough, and by the point I realized that I was wrong, and repair was useless, and hacking only got me extra ammo every now and then, it was impossible to progress because a long maze-like series of corridors, in which stealth was impossible, effectively halted my progress.

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Muzman says:

Hacking is just about the most powerful skill in the game and makes it a breeze. I feel like a cheat when I use it. Geez, with it you can be invisible to the security system, turn defence positions on the enemy, get everything cheap or free and so on.
A long mazelike series of coridoors? Is that in Engineering? You’d want to have gotten further than that before quitting.

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Max says:

I thought it was extremely weird how Bioshock took place in an underwater city yet you only ever swim at the very beginning of the game. It looks like they’ve at least changed that.

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bob arctor says:

I never completed SS2. It got a bit wank towards the end of the Rickenbacher, and I heard nothing good about the Von Braun…
Hangon. Whichever way round that should be.

But yeah, the parts I played (a few times up to that point) were awesome.
SS2 was rushed though, the devs admitted it, it was not a perfect game.

BS was easier to get through, a bit slicker, and the plot was good. However the sense of place didn’t hold up. The ships in SS2 fitted together. In BS I went in one door and teleported somewhere else.

And BS2 looks like it adds little, there is nothing more there!

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Robin says:

286? Pffft, n00b. 8086 here. ;P

If your comment was aimed at me, I should clarify: it’s not a console/PC thing. PC gamers if anything should be thankful that we get nice ports of games that could only really hope to make their money back on consoles.

Furthermore, I’m not “bitter” that Bioshock scored highly, just disappointed that the hype can still drown out balanced criticism if all the reviewers buy into the idea that a game is Important. Bioshock got 10/10 scores because there is a section of the market that is anxious for games to be seen as legitimate. It’s a phenomenon that’s been around since at least Myst.

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Howard says:

As Maxheadroom says: this is just an add-on and an uninteresting one at that. You playing a Big Daddy and protecting a Lil’ Sis’ – we’ve been there and we’ve fucking done that!
This is the same (very poor) engine as the 1st one with absolutely nothing added. No surprises then…

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Andrew says:

So much negativity :’( What have we become dear pc gamers? Bioshock wasnt perfect but it was still really really good. It doesnt deserve all the hate. I actually hope this sequel is amazing just to spite the cynical bastards.

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Muzman says:

It is a good thing to think about, why we are so down on what is an above average game with some quite daring aspects.
I must admit it’s mostly to do with the fact that I think the people who made it were capable of much better, and for once in the long and sordid grinding agonising history of Lookinglass and its offshoots they had the resources to do it. And they didn’t. They backed off seemingly because it wouldn’t sell (of course I don’t know if any one has ever tried really selling a game like that, a System Shock 2 or Deus Ex, so how would they know. And as soon as the money appears to do so I’m sure everyone wants to take a safer bet almost immediately on sight of all those zeros)
For it then to be successful and well recieved is slightly irritating as it shouldn’t be this game that’s famous for the stuff that it does ’cause several others have done it all better. It bugs me that game history has to loop back on itself in this way until we get a successful version of System Shock with a better interface somewhere down the road and everyone hails it as a revolution.
There’s some schadenfreude in the fact that, for all Bioshock’s goals of being a spearhead into the mainstream for more complex ideas and stories, all it’s really done so far is kick off a trend for tacked on “moral choice” (in very large, comic sans quote marks). Much as modern games are all trying to incorporate the sort of spacial complexity and AI detail that Thief managed a decade ago, but all it gets credit for is a bad trend in forced stealth sections.

All that sourgrapes under the surface will likely invalidate my opinion completely to some people and that’s ok.
However it is true that I just plain didn’t like it, and I tried so very hard. I was even having fun at the start and it was kinda scary and hard in a SS2 kinda way for a moment there. But it didn’t last.
There’s something about the games I really like Stalker, the Thiefs, SS2, HL2 & episodes etc. Playing them is like getting into silk longjohns; though the game might be hard or easy at base level its very comfortable to play and I can hang about in them for hours. Sometimes it takes a little while to click but it’s great when it does. Bioshock never did, in three full play throughs. Like running through soft sand it was always, however slightly, a chore to play. All the good writing and nice art direction and gimmickry in the world could not save it. And that brings all its other flaws (of which there are many, as we’ve been over once or twice) into sharp relief. It doesn’t matter how “good” a game is if it doesn’t have that nebulous something (And in games that have it, it often doesn’t matter how bad they are). I find Deus Ex: Invisible War more fun to run around in, now that modern technology has advanced sufficiently to run it smoothly.
I don’t know exactly why this is or what it is -in Thief for example, I know it’s just the ‘feel’ of the interface or avatar being so damn perfect. Other games it might be something else- The pattern for recent games that have this problem and were supposedly developed for PC and console together (ie developed for console and had mouse and keyboard support hacked in at the last minute) is just about one to one.

So anyway, short version: Expected game to surpass its ‘parents’ and it didn’t, but also genuinely didn’t enjoy it. Thus I complain now and then. New one has fairly steep climb where I’m concerned.
The counter argument often seems to suggest that we’re supposed to remove it from all context (unlikely), or though it’s not perfect like it for what it represents to PC gaming or something. Like voting for an old radical who abandoned his views to get a seat in cabinet, we should stick by him for his potential good influence on the others. That sort of thing falls under my ‘pointless positivity’ heading I’m afraid.

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Monolith says:

This footage does suggest an explanation for the Big Sister. Note the graffiti that says “we will be reborn in the womb of the ocean” and that one of the splicers in the battle at the end is a weird grey thing that looks more like a sea creature than a human being.

The splicers trapped in the city would eventually have realised that there was no way out, and that their only chance of survival was to use ADAM to mutate into something that could live in the sea. Since most of them were insane and many were afflicted with religious mania they would presumably have evolved some kind of cult around this idea. But to put it into practice they would need a huge supply of ADAM. To get this they turn one of their number into the Big Sister, to kidnap girls from coastal towns to become the new Little Sisters and to fight everyone else left in the city for whatever supplies of ADAM remain.

It’s also possible that the Big Sister was originally created by Tennenbaum to free the remaining Little Sisters from the Big Daddies but has gone rogue and joined the crazy fish cult. She might even be the creator of the cult, so intoxicated by her own power that she wants to become the goddess of a new aquatic master race. But then, who hasn’t dreamed of doing that?

Tennenbaum is trying to stop them, and has therefore re-programmed the most powerful Big Daddy to fight for her side. In Bioshock she had dedicated herself to rescuing the Little Sisters so it is not surprising that she would stay behind in Rapture to try and save the ones that hadn’t been liberated by Jack. It would then be quite logical for her to want to save the new Little Sisters as well, and she would use a Big Daddy because that’s the most effective weapon she has.

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Redford says:

Hopefully, they can program this one so the sound works correctly and it doesn’t make my video card freak out and crash my computer.

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Nick says:

“I now think its the best shooter/first person adventure game ever made”

You have very different standards from me.

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Bhazor says:

Reply to Nick
Enemy variety beats Halo
Weapons have more weight than Half Life 2
Looks better than any other shooter in art style.
Looks better than almost any other shooter technically (just watch water running downstairs)
Has better pacing (for the most part) than COD4.
Is both more challenging and more forgiving than any shooter other than Half Life 2.
Has around 40 weapons including mines, pet bots, trip wires, arm bees and a spready flamethrower-cum-biological weapon-cum-freeze cannon.
Has more varied and unpredictable AI than anything short of SWAT 4.
Uses randomised spawn points to keep enemy encounters varied.
Manages to have well above average voice work, better than Mass Effect though maybe not as good as HL2.
Also lasts for around 20 compared to the 6-8 hours of COD 4 or the 2 hours of the HL2 episodes.

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rolls20s says:

I don’t get why there are so many people trolling around moaning about how the original Bioshock wasn’t that great. Okay, we get it, why do you still need to drive that point home? Maybe it’s just me, but I honestly don’t see as many rabid Bioshock fanboys as I do rabid Bioshock haters, yet many people seem to have liked the game for what it was, myself included. If anyone who actually bothers to pay attention to the info on this game that’s been put out in the last month, a lot of the comments on here look ridiculous. Dumb, uniformed, and downright ignorant comments abound. I also had my doubts upon first hearing about the setting and initial plot for Bioshock 2, but after reading and listening to all of the work and info that’s been put out there so far, I think it’s going to be awesome from both a story and gameplay standpoint. They are expounding upon the original generously. Simultaneous plasmid and weapon use? Check. Less linear gameplay? Check. Delving deeper in to Rapture? Check. Sounds a hell of a lot better than 90% of the other stuff that’s coming out soon. I’ll be ready for it.

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